Tuesday, July 13, 2010

As an employee, the influence of our organisation to help you succeed in your life and achieve your dreams cannot be underestimated.And that’s the reason why finding the right organisation is much harder than looking for a job.

So how do you do that? how do you know when the organisation is the right one for you?Here are four things you need to expect from your organisation:

Love.As cliche as ‘love’ might sound, the right organisation is the one who shows you their love, that they care about you and your future. When they do, it means you’re an integral part of them, not just a moving part and there’s no higher achievement than that. However, you need to be careful about this too, because to measure love is harder than to count the number of sands on the beach. Most of the times, it’s your current organisation that care about you with the right amount. When you are in the process of moving to a new organisation, usually you’re being over-valued and you might disappointed that your current organisation doesn’t value you as much. But you need to realise, that when you cannot deliver what they expect, their love will dissipate as fast, which is happened too often because no recruitment system can predict you to be successful in your job 100% of time.

Growth.No one wants to be exactly where they are forever. A culture that allows you to grow and expand is very critical before you totally commit to an organisation.But you also need to understand that an opportunity to grow and expand is not created because the organisation has a career management system or because your boss gives you a promise that almost too good to be true. You still need to work hard and smart to create the opportunity yourself. Never be satisfied with what you had achieved. Ignore success and always strive for excellence.

Contribution.To feel fulfilled and recognised, you need know that you are contributing to the whole. Therefore, you need to know that your work matters to the organisation. Many organisations have performance management system in place, which measures the expected contribution that you need to perform. This system is usually very good on paper but ineffective in actuality. The main culprit is usually a disconnection between vision, mission and strategy of the organisation with day-to-day execution. Several factors are at play, lack of leadership capability of your boss is one of them. Translating organisation strategy and goals into individual performance indicator is the biggest challenge in implementing and sustaining a performance management system.

Meaning.People are meaning-seeking creatures. A shared vision that demonstrates that you are engaged in a larger purpose goes a long way to motivate yourself. Only you can motivate you. When you find an organisation with a vision that you believe in, you don’t need to have any other reason to commit to that organisation. Because that’s all you need.